![nightmare in the dark neo nightmare in the dark neo](https://64.media.tumblr.com/39e99c4c75f02d118ac09085026bee6b/tumblr_nb005lxyRE1roqda3o1_500.gif)
One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Standard stuff for sensitive middle-schoolers. Their group-text chain pulsed 24-7 with observations about alternative music and the robotic conformity of other classmates. In the taxonomy of our local public school, his close group of friends was tagged edgy and liberal: One of them came out as gay during a class presentation another identified as trans for a while. The problems had started when Sam was 13, barely a month into eighth grade. I’d always preached to him the importance of seeing things for yourself before making a decision, of talking to people individually to understand what motivated them. In fact, they were perfectly (too perfectly?) reverse-engineered to match my own values. His case was well thought out, his explanations admirable.
![nightmare in the dark neo nightmare in the dark neo](https://www.neostore.com/v/vspfiles/photos/1118-2.jpg)
The rally was just a half-hour Metro ride from our home in Washington’s outer suburbs-so he could make the trip alone, he assured me, flashing the transit app on his phone. As he would tell me later: “I wanted to be part of something big.” His favorite school subject was history, he reminded me, and he hungered to witness a genuinely significant event firsthand. I can still see him standing in front of me, the longing apparent in his big brown eyes. He’d anticipated my automatic veto and readied reasons in favor of attending-not as a participant, he stressed, but as an observer. Sam knew exactly how I would react to his request. Police there were unable to protect citizens I couldn’t reasonably expect this gathering in DC to be any different. I couldn’t shake off the shock of her violent murder, or of watching men with tiki torches shout racist slogans across the University of Virginia grounds.
![nightmare in the dark neo nightmare in the dark neo](https://image.jeuxvideo.com/images/ng/n/i/nitdng0f.jpg)
At Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally only a month earlier, a neo-Nazi had killed counterprotester Heather Heyer. Not only was this not how I wanted to spend a Saturday-like almost everyone I knew, I’d been devastated by the 2016 election results-but I had serious concerns about safety. The pro-Trump event was billed as a demonstration to preserve “traditional American culture,” and white supremacists were expected to show up in force. When my son Sam,* who was then 14, asked me to take him to the Mother of All Rallies on the Mall in September 2017, I said no.